and my errand being
known, General Leslie sent a Scots major and fifty horses to receive
me, but would let neither my trumpet or guard set foot within
their quarters. In this manner I was conducted to audience in the
chapter-house at Durham, where a committee of Scots lords who attended
the army received me very courteously, and gave me their answer in
writing also.

'Twas in this answer that they showed, at least to me, their design
of embroiling the king with his English subjects; they discoursed very
freely with me, and did not order me to withdraw when they debated
their private opinions. They drew up several answers but did not like
them; at last they gave me one which I did not receive, I thought it
was too insolent to be borne with. As near as I can remember it was
thus: The commissioners of Scotland attending the service in the army,
do refuse any treaty in the city of York.

One of the commissioners who treated me with more distinction than the
rest, and discoursed freely with me, gave me an opportunity to speak
more freely of this than I expected.

I told them if they would return to his Majesty an answer fit for me
to carry, or if they would say they would not treat at all, I would
deliver such a message. But I entreated them to consider the answer
was to their sovereign, and to whom they made a great profession of
duty and respect, and at least they ought to give their reasons why
they declined a treaty at York, and to name some other place, or
humbly to desire his Majesty to name some other place; but to send
word they would not treat at York, I could deliver no such message,
for when put into English it would signify they would not treat at
all.

I used a great many reasons and arguments with them on this head,
and at last with some difficulty obtained of them to give the reason,
which was the Earl of Strafford's having the chief command at York,
whom they declared their mortal enemy, he having declared them rebels
in Ireland.

With this answer I returned. I could make no observations in the short
time I was with them, for as I stayed but one night, so I was guarded
as a close prisoner all the while. I saw several of their officers
whom I knew, but they durst not speak to me, and if they would have
ventured, my guard would not have permitted them.

In this manner I was conducted out of their quarters to my own party
again, and having delivered my message to the king and told his
Majesty the circumstances, I saw the king receive the account of the
haughty behaviour of the Scots with some regret; however, it was his
Majesty's time now to bear, and therefore the Scots were complied
with, and the treaty appointed at Ripon; where, after much debate,
several preliminary articles were agreed on, as a cessation of arms,
quarters, and bounds to the armies, subsistence to the Scots army, and
the residue of the demands was referred to a treaty at London, &c.

We were all amazed at the treaty, and I cannot but remember we used to
wish much rather we had been suffered to fight; for though we had been
worsted at first, the power and strength of the king's interest, which
was not yet tried, must, in fine, have been too strong for the Scots,
whereas now we saw the king was for complying with anything, and all
his friends would be ruined.

I confess I had nothing to fear, and so was not much concerned, but
our predictions soon came to pass, for no sooner was this Parliament
called but abundance of those who had embroiled their king with his
people of both kingdoms, like the disciples when their Master was
betrayed to the Jews, forsook him and fled; and now Parliament tyranny
began to succeed Church tyranny, and we soldiers were glad to see it
at first. The bishops trembled, the judges went to gaol, the officers
of the customs were laid hold on; and the Parliament began to lay
their fingers on the great ones, particularly Archbishop Laud and the
Earl of Strafford. We had no great concern for the first, but the
last was a man of so much conduct and gallantry, and so beloved by the
soldiers and principal gentry of England, that everybody was touched
with his misfortune.

The Parliament now grew mad in their turn, and as the prosperity of
any party is the time to show their discretion, the Parliament showed
they knew as little where to stop as other people. The king was not in
a condition to deny anything, and nothing could be demanded but they
pushed it. They attainted the Earl of Strafford, and thereby made
the king cut off his right hand to save his left, and yet not save
it neither. They obtained another bill to empower them to sit during
their own pleasure, and after them, triennial Parliaments to meet,
whether the king call them or no; and granting this completed his
Majesty's ruin.

Had the House only regulated the abuses of the court, punished evil
counsellors, and restored Parliaments to their original and just
powers, all had been well, and the king, though he had been more than
mortified, had yet reaped the benefit of future peace; for now
the Scots were sent home, after having eaten up two countries, and
received a prodigious sum of money to boot. And the king, though too
late, goes in person to Edinburgh, and grants them all they could
desire, and more than they asked; but in England, the desires of ours
were unbounded, and drove at all extremes.

They drew out the bishops from sitting in the House, made a
protestation equivalent to the Scotch Covenant, and this done, print
their remonstrance. This so provoked the king, that he resolves upon
seizing some of the members, and in an ill hour enters the House in
person to take them. Thus one imprudent thing on one hand produced
another of the other hand, till the king was obliged to leave them to
themselves, for fear of being mobbed into something or other unworthy
of himself.

These proceedings began to alarm the gentry and nobility of England;
for, however willing we were to have evil counsellors removed, and
the government return to a settled and legal course, according to the
happy constitution of this nation, and might have been forward enough
to have owned the king had been misled, and imposed upon to do things
which he had rather had not been done, yet it did not follow, that
all the powers and prerogatives of the crown should devolve upon the
Parliament, and the king in a manner be deposed, or else sacrificed to
the fury of the rabble.

The heats of the House running them thus to all extremes, and at last
to take from the king the power of the militia, which indeed was
all that was left to make him anything of a king, put the king upon
opposing force with force; and thus the flame of civil war began.

However backward I was in engaging in the second year's expedition
against the Scots, I was as forward now, for I waited on the king
at York, where a gallant company of gentlemen as ever were seen in
England, engaged themselves to enter into his service; and here some
of us formed ourselves into troops for the guard of his person.

The king having been waited upon by the gentry of Yorkshire, and
having told them his resolution of erecting his royal standard, and
received from them hearty assurances of support, dismisses them, and
marches to Hull, where lay the train of artillery, and all the
arms and ammunition belonging to the northern army which had been
disbanded. But here the Parliament had been beforehand with his
Majesty, so that when he came to Hull, he found the gates shut, and
Sir John Hotham, the governor, upon the walls, though with a great
deal of seeming humility and protestations of loyalty to his person,
yet with a positive denial to admit any of the king's attendants into
the town. If his Majesty pleased to enter the town in person with any
reasonable number of his household, he would submit, but would not
be prevailed on to receive the king as he would be received, with his
forces, though those forces were then but very few.

The king was exceedingly provoked at this repulse, and indeed it was
a great surprise to us all, for certainly never prince began a war
against the whole strength of his kingdom under the circumstances that
he was in. He had not a garrison, or a company of soldiers in his
pay, not a stand of arms, or a barrel of powder, a musket, cannon
or mortar, not a ship of all the fleet, or money in his treasury to
procure them; whereas the Parliament had all his navy, and ordnance,
stores, magazines, arms, ammunition, and revenue in their keeping.
And this I take to be another defect of the king's counsel, and a sad
instance of the distraction of his affairs, that when he saw how all
things were going to wreck, as it was impossible but he should see it,
and 'tis plain he did see it, that he should not long enough before it
came to extremities secure the navy, magazines, and stores of war, in
the hands of his trusty servants, that would have been sure to have
preserved them for his use, at a time when he wanted them.

It cannot be supposed but the gentry of England, who generally
preserved their loyalty for their royal master, and at last heartily
showed it, were exceedingly discouraged at first when they saw the
Parliament had all the means of making war in their own hands, and the
king was naked and destitute either of arms or ammunition, or money
to procure them. Not but that the king, by extraordinary application,
recovered the disorder the want of these things had thrown him into,
and supplied himself with all things needful.

But my observation was this, had his Majesty had the magazines, navy,
and forts in his own hand, the gentry, who wanted but the prospect of
something to encourage them, had come in at first, and the Parliament,
being unprovided, would have been presently reduced to reason. But
this was it that balked the gentry of Yorkshire,